To all new students, both undergrads and grads: Gather your purses and wallets. This is not a… To all new students, both undergrads and grads: Gather your purses and wallets. This is not a drill.

You’re about to reshape the land, make opportunities for some, break them for others and cause significant sociocultural change right here in Pittsburgh. People less keen on the dramatic might describe your task differently: You’re going shopping.

Whichever words you end up choosing, the amount of spending you’re sure to do here over your academic career, starting today, amounts to some serious cash.

According to a Pitt study, Pitt students in 2008 injected more than $246 million into the local economy. That’s more than half of what the entire city gets in yearly revenue. The typical college is supposed to teach you the power of the pen, of dedication and of creativity, among other things — but at Pitt, be wary of the tremendous power residing in your wallet.

From retail stores to pizza shops to local charity organizations, your dollars will decide what lives and dies in Oakland’s commercial jungle in the years ahead. Spending is one of the most direct forms of community involvement, and your purse exercises at least as much power over local issues as does your ballot, if not more.

So while Oakland residents might see the beginning of fall as a flood of rowdy young folks preparing to tear up the town in a swamp of drunken debauchery, the local businesses of Oakland see the last week of August and the first weeks of September as cause for joyous celebration. It’s Christmas time for Oakland businesses, and, you guessed it, in this holiday production you play the red-coated fat man with the sack full of dollars.

And they just can’t wait to have you climbing down their chimneys. Pittsburgh companies are itching to clothe you in their tight jeans and their intelligent bras, to nourish you with their humane hamburgers and their novelty drinks and to “zip” you around in their pay-per-trip automobiles. In Pittsburgh, the customer is always right, but the student is even righter.

They treat you well because they know how much power you have.

We won’t holler at you that great power implies great responsibility. We’ll just say it politely and with the greatest affection. Because it’s true.

Before you ask a business if it takes Panther Funds, you should be asking if it’s acting as you think a business should, if it delivers goods and services in ways that coincide with the society that you want. An informed consumer is an active citizen.

For however long you plan to stay, be conscious of your impact on this city. We assure you, the impact will be made, with or without your consent. In two years, or four, or six or whenever your academic pursuits take you away from Pittsburgh, our community will look and feel very different from the way it does now. And the change will be, in a large part, your legacy.

So come on, be a conscious Santa Claus: Choose your gift..